Today’s marketing world may be dominated by social media, mobile apps and digital, but live events still hold considerable sway for CMOs, according to a recent survey of European CMOs by the CMO Club and compiled by Cvent. CMOs prize events for their ability to drive revenue growth, uncover distinctive leads, and accelerate sales to deliver bottom-line business results.
Driving Revenue Growth
83% of CMOs describe their event programmes as “extremely”, “very” or “significantly” valuable for facilitating revenue growth. Similarly, 89% of marketers deem their events as “critical”, “very important” or “important” to accelerating sales.
One survey respondent, Phil Cement, former CMO at AON, went a step further, qualifying leads generated at events as more committed because they have, “invested more time and energy in establishing a face-to-face relationship with you and sharing their wants and needs.”
Rationale for Live Events
CMOs see three main reasons to support live events:
- Brand awareness and thought leadership – Events provide a more controlled environment to establish messaging, educate audiences and create thought leadership
- Generate leads – Event attendees are indicating their interest by attending. Lead conversion flows from generating a memorable live experience, capturing lead data and follow-up
- Customer satisfaction and engagement – Events that can drive positive and personal interactions can build loyalty and spark customer endorsements.
Gauging Event Measurement
While more than half (57%) of EMEA CMOs said their events contribute to their overall revenue goals, they note that they need more justification to secure board-level sign-off for their programmes. This can be found in metrics such as lead generation, customer satisfaction, attendee engagement and social media activity.
To effectively measure:
- Set goals for establishing success benchmarks
- Develop marketing and sales plans pegged to each event
- Deliver a meaningful and memorable event experience
- Build lead management into post-event follow-up
- Measure the experience and its sales impact
Proving ROI: More than a Hunch
The European study found that the most pressing challenge for CMOs to raise the bar with their event programmes is proving ROI. 53% of marketers noted that proving ROI was “very important” when allocating budget to events, but 75% said proving ROI was their greatest event marketing challenge.
Ways to prove event ROI include:
- Tracking attendee activity on mobile apps
- Introducing gamification to the event to understand attendee engagement
- Monitoring attendee activity and movement at the event
- Conducting mid-event surveys through mobile apps
- Establishing social listening dashboards
For more information on the CMO Club study, click here.
